Minor pissing about my daughter's high school

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Zoe we’re in Hendersonville. I honestly think it is just the school’s policy because Gallatin will still have weighted grades AFAWK and they still have first chair in band.

I think that many of you have valid points, and I reiterate my stance that I want her to continue to be in the advanced classes. I think the few who have chimed in with “STFU, I didn’t get my grades weighted so no one else should” seriously? Just because you weren’t recognised doesn’t mean that no one else should be. That’s my whole point – people should be recognised for achievement. I can’t sit by and think that it makes sense for the best and brightest to be ignored because it hurts some little moron’s feelings. Yes, my children are both very bright and have very little trouble in school. Maybe I would feel differently if my kid was the little moron – probably not, though. I would want to encourage them to do their best just as I do now.

I should also point out that in our county, the grade scale is not standard – it’s 100-93 for an A, 92-85 for a B, 84-74 for a C and 74-70 for a D. Every other district I am aware of uses the standard (that all colleges of which I am aware also use) of 100-90, 89-80, 79-70, 69-60. Yes, I am aware that most colleges don’t recognise a D, but most schools do. This means that for her to maintain her A in her honors/AP class, she has 3 less points leeway than a student in another school.

Meh. At the end of the day, none of us have any control over what the school does or doesn’t do, but I will exercise my right to bitch about it as I choose. Well, until that right is taken away, too. Fucking nanny state.

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Your daughter is being recognized for her achievements. You’re of the opinion she’s no longer getting sufficient recognition, but she’ll be recognized for it and she’s still getting points on her grade for it.

63

Ok, this is true. She is being recognised for it on a smaller scale. My biggest whine is long-term effects of erasing the top 10%. Whatever, my vitriol is actually spent on this topic. I don’t have much in me over anything, least of all stuff that doesn’t directly affect me.

I am not a helicopter parent, and my children are not the kind that need to be praised every time they wipe their ass to remember to do it, so it’s really rather minor.

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I don’t know you and would not presume to judge, but I doubt that most helicopter parents recognize that they are in fact hovering.

What do you actually think these long-term effects will be?

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I’m not accusing you of any particular parenting obsession, I just don’t believe in the long term effects.

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Litoris - I agree with you for the most part. Maybe an entire point is excessive and an Honors A should only be 4.5 points and an AP A 5. But I strongly believe the kids’ GPA should reflect the additional effort required in Honors/AP classes.

When I was in HS, you only got the added points for a C or higher. So I screwed off in AP trig and got a D - which was recorded as a 0. Dropped me from somewhere in the 30s to 200 or so (out of 1100). Which pissed me off at the time, tho I’m not sure it is a horrible policy. Maybe a tad unfair. I mean, if I had gotten a D in a regular class, it would have been worth at least 1 point. Oh well - certainly not the end of the world. Just the way it was done back then.

My youngest of 3 is graduating HS this year. When my 2 oldest were accepted into college, class rank was a mandatory factor in determining eligibility for certain financial aid. Top 5% was the cut off. So rank does matter. Seems kinda odd to me that a slacker could get a perfect 4.0 GPA by taking all regulars, and be valedictorian instead of some kid who took all honors/AP but happened to get a B.

At some point in my kids’ HS careers they all took regular classes, and consistently commented on how easy they were. In fact, this year my kid was trying to convince us that she didn’t need to buy the book for her regular anatomy class (in which she is currently averaging 100% on tests/quizzes/assignments).

We encouraged our kids to take honors/AP whenever possible for a number of reasons. They would learn more from the more demanding curriculum and with the smarter, more dedicated students. Scoring well on AP tests is a much cheaper way to get some general requirements out of the way than in college. And they make the transcript look better - whether through the H/AP designation or the weighted points.

I also am a fan of acknowledging and rewarding academic excellence. I think our HSs pay too much attention to sports and extracurriculars, while not directing enough praise to the hardworking kids who excel at their classes, but will never throw a perfect spiral or sink a 3-pointer.

Re: seating in band. My kids all did band since 5th grade. I remember thinking it harsh when they would challenge for seat positions, but came to really appreciate it as a sign of meritocracy. My youngest is especially talented at bassoon, but has played in groups where they “rotated” 1st chair. Pissed her off, I can tell you.

Like I said, I agree with you, and I disagree with the trend to protecting everyone’s self esteem. But take comfort in the fact that you have a very capable daughter who will do quite well in her future endeavors.

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When I was in high school, we were pissed off because the English department decided at the end of my junior year that AP English was “too much trouble” and didn’t offer it when 15 or 20 of us would have taken it. (bear in mind my graduating class was 74 people.) I didn’t take AP Calculus either because I suck at math, but I never heard that their grades were in any way different from the rest of the grades given in math classes. I suspect they weren’t.

I’m actually kind of surprised to hear that the different tracts in high schools have different GPA calibrations. We had two tracts - general and “college bound” (seems to be analogous to what people refer to as “honors” elsewhere) - and an A in one class was identical to an A in another. No one ever complained about this, so I guess no one else in the school had heard of multiple GPA calibrations back then, either.

People like the OP’s daughter probably wonder why we bothered taking the more advanced classes if it didn’t do anything for our GPA. Why? Because college admittance boards really like seeing those classes instead of general level ones. If you want to go to college, looking like you’re living up to your potential is a good starting point when it comes time to apply to schools.

If the OP’s daughter does decide to take the lower-level classes, the first question out of an admission board interviewer is going to be “Why?” and “I decided to slack off because the changes aren’t fair” isn’t going to go over well.

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Offered as evidence for anyone questioning the longterm results of canceling an AP English class! :stuck_out_tongue:

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Why is the top 10% so important? Do colleges give that a lot of weight?

The way I was raised, while working hard wasn’t its own reward, it was simply an expectation that I’d do well in school. If I didn’t, my freedoms were restricted. If I did, I was given far more autonomy and freedom because my mom trusted my ability to appropriately manage my time and learn what I was supposed to. I got some “Good job, overlys,” but that was it.

It was the school’s job to present the material and adequate stimulation and evaluate my knowledge of the material; it was mine to absorb the material well and get good grades; it was my family’s to congratulate me on my grades and get me help if needed. Good grades to the school and my mom meant I could participate in sports if I wanted and extracirriculars; doing well meant that those things were taken away by both parties.

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The regional admissions directors have a very good idea of how competitive high schools are in their portfolio. They also have a very good idea of how many people they are going to accept from your region. Whether you are in the top x% carries zero information to the colleges. Of far greater importance is your own GPA, SAT/ACT, writing sample, and the host of other so-called “intangibles” that justify the perverse lottery of college admissions.

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Maeglin and Marley23 – the long-term effects I am talking about have nothing to do with my kids specifically, but with society. it’s the whole concept of refusing to acknowledge excellence and instead rewarding mediocrity. When we can no reward excellence, what will our average worker be like? Blah. Blah as a worker and going to sue at the drop of a hat if his feelings are hurt. Am I being overly dramatic? Maybe, but you asked and that’s how I feel about it. It’s a downward spiral that I do not want to witness.

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:p:D
Um…we all know I meant track in that quote, don’t we? Both times? Oh well.

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Whether or not this is correct, it is directly contrary to what we were told over the past 3 years by admissions people from at least 4 public and private colleges in 2 states.

We were consistently told that class ranking - top 5% or 10% - was one critical factor in terms of eligibility for various honors programs and merit-based scholarships.

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Thanks for the clarification. I never knew what percentage I fell into in my class - they never told us. I guess it was because it had no bearing on our ability to get into a good college, so it didn’t matter. Like I said, it was just an expectation that you’d do well. If you didn’t, you were penalized.

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Actually, I assumed you had attended a HS with active 4H/FFA programs, where all the women were beautiful, rich, and had huge … tracts of land! :cool:

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I still just don’t see non-weighted grades as refusing to acknowledge excellence. They took AP classes. Their report cards say “AP Ceramics” or whatever. Do colleges offer more points of advanced physics classes than women’s studies ones? Of course not. The GPA and the classes taken are both taken into consideration when deciding what a person’s transcript reflects about them. There is no one number that can measure the worth or even the achievement of a person.

Anyway, just different education philosophies. When I was in high school all the super-achievers used to check their class ranking constantly. They would freak out when they dropped down a rank or when someone unknown enter the ranks. They were always gaming the system to gain whatever small advantages they could, and often that meant taking fewer classes or not taking classes they were interested in. Now and then you’d see a girl crying in the bathroom because she dropped from 4th in the class to 5th in the class. Or you’d meet someone who was convinced that the B that broke his 4.0 completely canceled four years of work and ruined him for life.

I always thought it was pretty stupid that they put that much effort into a bunch of numbers and percents, and whatever they were actually learning was pretty secondary. Education isn’t a game with winners and losers.

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Yeah, pretty much this. If the OP’s daughter takes the AP class anyway, even if it isn’t weighted as highly, it’ll look that much better. She may not get x extra points, but if the colleges she applies to ask about that, it’ll look pretty good for her if she says, “No, they’re not weighted like that, but I took the course to challenge myself” or “because I love English.” I can’t understand how this is a bad thing. Taking AP shouldn’t just be about how you can increase your GPA, but how you can show how you’ve challenged and pushed yourself.

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Eligibility for honors programs and scholarships is one thing. Admissions into a university is another. Incidentally, my parents run a college admissions counseling/test prep business. I hate to use arguments from authority and cite sources not available to anyone else, but I have learned some extremely illuminating things from them. My mother has visited hundreds of colleges all over the country and has a broad network of admissions personnel.

College admissions is an interesting business.

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A legitimate gripe in some cases, I just don’t think the top 10 percent thing really plays into it. I was in the top 10 percent of my class, my exact class probably helped me with colleges, and I still felt it was stupid.

Excellence is always going to be rewarded in one way or another, academically and professionally. The workplace might change some as workers with different expectations get into it, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing - and on the other hand they’ll also change with experience in the workplace.

80

This I do not understand at all.

There is little to no connection between praise in high school and a society of mediocrity. The rewards for excellence are absolutely everywhere, in brutally tangible ways once you leave high school. My excellence, such as it is, has been rewarded by my career & its remuneration, by my satisfaction with my life, and by a wonderful wife who enjoys sharing my life with me. I don’t need anyone to tell me I am in the top 10%. Cultivating internal, not external validation is a life lesson I am glad I learned young. It did not stop the reality/self-image collision of my early 20s, alas, but it helped quite a bit.

Workers who have been praised and rewarded for grade-seeking and other dubious, abstract accomplishments are the ones least likely to perform well under adverse circumstances. This is especially true when these accomplishments are poor predictors of later happiness or success at life, however broadly defined.

We as a society are way too preoccupied with the end goal, the metric, the benchmark. I hope to instill in my child the value of learning and education not to excel for the sake of excellence, but to craft a pleasing mental landscape that will last the rest of his/her life. We have to live in our minds every moment of our lives, so it might as well be a pleasant place to be. Getting good grades for the sake of “achievement” is orthogonal to this. Learn and do well because having a refined and educated mind is both a personal duty and an end in and of itself. Either the grades will be good or they won’t. Neither will have all that much impact on the life of a capable person.

Adolescence is full of worries and insecurity. Why make it worse?

I am obviously very passionate about this and my approach is not for everyone. I might be going off the deep end here articulating my point of view, but perhaps it will resonate with someone else. I am a dozen years out of high school and am fond of reflection about these kinds of things. I really do not mean to be judgmental, I just have strong opinions that I hope to test out on my first victim in the very near future.